All band members were born in 1979. As best friends, they formed in the eighth grade to play for their school's "Day on the Green." The only girl band in their town Palo Alto, California, they were relatively unknown until they were out of high school. They are all self-taught musicians and practiced in Castellano's garage nearly every day during high school. They are sometimes described as a punk band, but the band itself denies any kind of affiliation with the punk rock movement.

Experimenting with different musical styles, they underwent a variety of band names (Screen, Ragad ...read more

All band members were born in 1979. As best friends, they formed in the eighth grade to play for their school's "Day on the Green." The only girl band in their town Palo Alto, California, they were relatively unknown until they were out of high school. They are all self-taught musicians and practiced in Castellano's garage nearly every day during high school. They are sometimes described as a punk band, but the band itself denies any kind of affiliation with the punk rock movement.

Experimenting with different musical styles, they underwent a variety of band names (Screen, Ragady Anne, and The Electrocutes) before settling on The Donnas. They worked with producer Darin Raffaelli for their first two albums, the first of which, simply called The Donnas, was entirely written by Raffaelli and released on his own Superteem! record label. (It was later released again on Lookout! Records.) They took a week off of their senior year of high school to tour Japan and experimented with riot grrrl under The Electrocutes. They signed with Lookout! Records. As the band grew, they were urged to sign with a major label company. In 2001, they signed with Atlantic Records.

In 2002, the Donnas released Spend the Night. The album was their mainstream break through, spawning the hit single "Take It Off" and appearances on Total Request Live, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and The Late Show with David Letterman. In the summer of 2003, they played the main stage at Lollapalooza. In 2004, they released their sixth album Gold Medal. In February 2005, they toured Australia with the Big Day Out music festival, playing from Sydney to Perth.

Some of their influences include KISS, L7, Bikini Kill, Shonen Knife, The Muffs, Guns N' Roses, R.E.M., The Ramones, and Bratmobile.

Up until the release of 2004's Gold Medal, the band used pseudonyms as a tribute to The Ramones. Each member was known as "Donna" followed by the first initial of their surname (eg. Brett was known as Donna A). They decided to drop the stage names prior to the release of Gold Medal to present an image appropriate for the more mature sound that they had adopted on the new album.

The Donnas' music has also made various appreances in the gaming world. "You've Got A Crush On Me" can be heard in the PlayStation 2 game, Splashdown. "Who Invited You" can be found on soundtrack for True Crime: Streets of LAand MVP Baseball 2003. "I Don't Want to Know" is in the Gran Turismo 4 sountrack also and a cover of the song was also used for Donkey Konga 2 for the Nintendo GameCube. A cover of "Take It Off" is featured in Guitar Hero (released in 2005) and Downhill Domination (released in 2004).
A cover of "Roll On Down The Highway" was used in a Disney commercial.
The band appeared in the movie Drive Me Crazy in 1999 (as the Electrocutes). They also appeared in the teen comedy Jawbreaker (film) as the prom band, contributing two songs to the soundtrack ("Rock 'N' Roll Machine" and "Checkin' It Out"). The Donnas can also be heard on Mean Girls during the end credits playing a cover of the Billy Idol song "Dancing With Myself", and they also contributed to the soundtrack of the movie Grind (2003 film).
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